Canuck the Dots

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Friday, December 28, 2012

2012 is coming to a close, and we couldn't let it go by without posting our video from the Mongol Rally! We are very lucky people, with talented and generous friends who kindly edited our many videos together into watchable format. I realized at the end of 10,000 miles when going over the footage that I am not a very good videographer (shaky hands! panning across scenes too fast!). Luckily, the combination of stunning scenery and the awesome people we met during the rally coupled with the superior editing/production skills of our friends Will and Renee (http://secretlevelfilms.com) made our video turn out really well. Thanks again to Secret Level Films! Hope you enjoy the video!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

The Adventurists recently emailed to ask for some figures on how much the Rally really costs, so I figured now was as good a time as any to get around to writing our expenses/lessons learned post! So, here it is from Team Canuck the Dots.

Overall expense: $12,000 for 2 people (this doesn't include the car - we fundraised money to cover that)

Fuel cost: I have no idea, I meant to calculate the receipts when we got home but they got soaked during a Mongolian river fording.

Car fixing: We got a sump guard installed in the UK for about 200 pounds, off-road tires in Turkmenistan for $200 and paid $3 in Uzbekistan to fix some flat tires

Unexpected Costs: The ferry to Azerbaijan - We didn't realize quite how expensive it would be. I thought it was $100/person, but it ended up being that plus $70 per metre of the car (over $500). Also, we were stuck in Baku for 3 days, where accommodation was more expensive. Another thing we didn't expect was having to pay more money in Turkmenistan to get into the country - I think it was around $200, so make sure you always have cash!

Car cost: 1600 pounds for a 2007 Perodua Kenari with 19,000 miles on it. Great!

Visas: $1000/person

Plane tickets: $1200 for two people

Our advice to future Ralliers:

New stuff: You really don't need to buy that much stuff. Really. There's no need to buy a whole bunch of new, shiny gear for the rally because it's going to be dirty, smelly, and likely destroyed by the end. You don't need fancy hiking boots, jackets, etc. Just use what you have. I think I actually wore Hawaianas 90% of the time. Do make sure you take a warm jacket, Mongolia is REALLY cold the first few days of driving. We are Canadian and we still froze our butts off because we underestimated how cold it would be, especially at night.

I would recommend a multi-fuel stove (awesome!) and a pop-up tent because it saves so much time and you have the glorious feeling of moral superiority when you are done setting up camp while everyone is still trying to string poles through their tents. One thing that I would advise that another team had was a kettle that you could plug into the cigarette lighter, perfect for making tea/coffee/oatmeal/noodle soups without unpacking everything. I would also recommend a few plastic tote bins to put your food and other stuff in so it is easy to organize and keep dust out. There will be inches of dust in your car by the end. We had a ton of junk in the car that we didn't even use because it was impossible to find quickly when you needed it. I lost my main camera lens inside the vehicle for the last week driving through Mongolia and had to back up 100 meters to take a picture of anything. I didn't find it until we emptied the car at the finish line.

One thing that you should do is buy or bring a few random trinkets from your home country. I had made earrings as part of my fundraising efforts and gave those along the way when we met new people, camped at service stations, etc. People loved them - I even bartered a few pairs for water bottles and ice cream near the ferry terminal in Baku. Perhaps more impressively, our friends the Mongol Rally Roos got out of a number of police incidents by paying police officers with tiny stuffed koalas. That definitely saved money!

Accommodation: On accommodation, we stayed with friends/family the first week of the trip. The Mongol Rally is a GREAT time to use your connections - call up your cousins, friends from exchange, anyone and try to crash at their place for a while. This will save you some cold-hard cash (especially in Europe) as well as allow you the opportunity to chill with locals. Another awesome thing that one of our friends did was book us a few nights of hotel in Istanbul on his travel rewards points. If you, or anyone you know, travel a lot (for work or play) they likely have points that they can put towards hotels (Sheraton, Marriott, Holiday Inn, etc) for you. Especially because you are doing this for charity. Emphasize that aspect and not just the fact that you are cheap. Do this earlier in the trip because there are less accommodation options the further east that you go. And the rooms are probably nicer than anything you would actually pay for yourself.

Fuel: We drove A LOT in Turkey, which was super expensive. The rest of the way was pretty standard, although Europe is more expensive than Canada. If you want to save money, drive more in the countries with cheaper gas. Your car will probably have excellent fuel economy since it is tiny.

Car: Get your car fixed along the way, but definitely put on off-road tires somewhere in Central Asia. Don't do everything in the UK, it will cost you more and the roads are actually quite good until Georgia so the likelihood of you need the spares is very low. There is no need to have 4 spare tires. Make sure to get tires with steel rims so they can be pounded back into shape if you do happen to get a flat in Central Asia. Make sure that you do have tools (jack, tire iron, pump). When we got our first flat tires we found out that we didn't even have a tire iron. This was on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere Uzbekistan. We relied on the kindness of locals, but a tire iron is definitely a good thing to have!

Getting a car that is not a complete piece of junk will help you in the long run. We highly recommend Peroduas.

Unexpected costs - things don't really go according to plan on the Rally, so while it is important to try to budget, make sure you have a bit of a reserve fund so you don't miss out on the experience. You don't want to drive through Turkmenistan to see the Darvaza gas craters and then not go because you find out you need to pay a local $10 to take you up there in a 4-wheel-drive. That being said, we definitely could have cut a few costs, but felt they were worth it for the experience i.e. partying with friends in London and going for a hot air balloon ride in Cappadocia (the two of those combined probably put us back $1000). YOLO!

Visas - you should start getting your visas ASAP. With the amount of bureaucracy necessary for the visas for Central Asia you can be assured that nothing will go smoothly. It took us ages longer than anticipated to get our invite letters, and some of them were incorrect when we received them so we had to wait another few weeks to get those back before we could get our actual visas. We then had to rush our last visa, which added another $200 to the total cost. Because Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan don't have representation in Canada, we had to courier our passports to the US, which was more expensive. We also didn't end up going to Tajikistan (civil unrest) and by the time we had gotten to Kyrgyzstan they had announced there were no more visa requirements! If we had known that, we would have saved a few hundred dollars each on visas. I recommend VisaHQ if you need help processing your visas, but they don't do invite letters. StanTours is really good for invite letters, the only annoying thing is that you have to do a wire transfer since they don't take PayPal. You'll need to use the Adventurists Visa Machine for your Turkmenistan visa/letter but I wouldn't recommend them for anything else. And make sure you check your visas when they are issued and ensure your name, passport number etc. are correct, otherwise you'll be kind of screwed like the random rally dudes we met at the Turkmenistan embassy in Istanbul who had to change their rally route because the Visa Machine people had typed one guy's passport number incorrectly and the Turkmen embassy wouldn't issue their visa.

Plane tickets: Here is another time where you should look into rewards/points programs available to you. We checked the price for our two one-way plane tickets Ottawa-London and London-Ulaanbaatar and the total was around $4000 (high London flight prices due to the Olympics). Instead of paying this out of pocket, we sent in an application for Aeroplan Charitable Pooling. This sets up an account where people can donate you Aeroplan miles to cover the cost of your flight. We managed to get enough points donated that we only had to pay the taxes on our flights, which was $600/person. It takes 6 weeks to process these applications, so the sooner you look into something like this, the better.

Fundraising Tips - In total we raised $4000 to buy our car, and then a total of $9000ish at the end of the day for our charities (donations + car sale after import taxes were paid)

Pick a local charity in addition to the Mongol Rally official charity - one of the most common reasons we got turned down when we were requesting sponsorship was because companies have a "give where you live" motto for charitable donations. If you can demonstrate that you going on the rally can benefit the community, you are more likely to get in-kind donations, as well as local press coverage.

Use your connections - All of the sponsorship money we got for our car was from people we knew. Try people like your dentist, real estate agent, etc. They make a lot of money so they are more likely to give it to you. Also, if you recommend even one person to them, they've made their investment back.

Do something that has a silent auction component - just canvas local restaurants, shops, etc. They'll usually give you gift certificates, which is basically like free money when you auction it off. Some kind of evening event where people can mingle and mill around the auction table is usually good. For our event, we made the mistake of paying to rent a nicer space when we should have just gone with a space that had a lower overhead cost to maximize funds raised. Many community centres will give you a discount or waive the rental fee if you are holding a charitable event.

Be creative - we weren't that creative although we did a variety of fundraising events (speed-dating, evening of dinner and entertainment, selling jewelry etc), but something along the lines of what Team Cookbook Adventuredid might be a good idea!

Other: Make sure that you have cash for Central Asia, and make sure that you have small denominations of USD that you can convert. Some places will not take even $20s and the smaller denominations trade at a higher exchange rate in the 'stans. You need local currency in most of the 'stans. You can't use your bank cards to take out money in Turkmenistan and your cell phone won't work there. Just adds to the fun! You'll also start talking Rally speak and saying things like "kit" and "tarmac" by the end. Just embrace it.Also, by the last few days in Mongolia you'll be so hell-bent on getting to Ulaanbaatar that you just want to drive, drive, drive and not stop and appreciate what's around you. Take the time to take that awesome car picture, stop at a Mongolian wrestling event (we drove by this and wish we had stopped for 15 minutes!), hold an eagle or do whatever. You'll still make it, and in the end it won't really matter if it was an hour earlier or later and your experience will be better for it. It's definitely a lot of work and planning to get everything done before you leave, but if you do decide to do the rally, you won't regret it!

Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Mongol Rally was the craziest, most intense, amazing, energizing, frustrating, fascinating thing we’ve done and we are still trying to process it! It’s impossible to remember every moment, but we are so thankful for all of the people that supported us before we left and along the way. We discovered a lot about an area of the world that was a mystery to us and we learned and reaffirmed things about ourselves (yes, we are both cranky when hungry). We are truly grateful for the friendship, hospitality and positive energy all along the way.

An extra big thank you to our friends and family who tirelessly helped us with all of our fundraising efforts and organization for the trip, and to all of our sponsors - check them out below!Secret Level Films - an awesome Toronto-based production company.Central Dental - if you need a dentist in Ottawa - check out Dr. Eid, he's awesome!Ruze -Clean and simple feel-good products for environmentally-conscious customers.Loudmouth Printhouse - Ottawa based artist-inspired graphic design and printhouse.David and Sarita - Thank you for your generous support of our car. Your family picture made us many friends along the way!

At last count, we had raised over $8,000 for our two charities - The Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Lotus Children's Centre and that's not including the money that will be raised from the sale of our car! (You can still donate to our charities via the links at the top left if you feel so inclined).We are still waiting to hear back from the organizers on how much our car sells for, but we are sure it will make a pretty penny.We'll post more pictures from the trip once we have a chance to sort through all of them.Thanks again!

We left the
ger camp in the morning, and arrived back into Ulaanbaatar in the afternoon.

Ed and Ben chilling on our spacious bus ride back to Ulaanbaatar

Sebastien was feeling worse at this point, so he decided to relax in the hotel
while I convinced John and Kevin that we should go to the market, a decision
which I am sure they regretted after they had to wait for me to try on multiple
pairs of leather boots!

The Naran
Tuul market, or the black market, is a huge market in Ulaanbaatar where you can
buy pretty much anything – except for apparently a souvenir t-shirt, which I
found out the hard way! We wandered the stalls, bought traditional Mongolian hats,
leather goods, and random odds and ends. After a few hours, we were pretty
tired and headed back, though I did have three pairs of cute boots to show for
it, so I considered it a successful excursion.

We made it an early night, and then the day arrived – the day we were finally flying home. While we were happy at the prospect
of getting home to see our friends and family, sleep in our comfy beds and
finally get all the dust and dirt out of our belongings, it was also bittersweet
to say bye to our friends. Not to mention that I was totally jealous of the
rest of our friends who were still traveling to exotic locations like Vietnam
and Bali.

Sebastien
was still not feeling 100% so he stayed in the hotel while I ran a few errands.
I went to see the Roos at Gaby’s house so we could exchange our thousands of
photos of each other and say our last “see you laters”.

After a
heartfelt goodbye with the Roos, I headed to lunch with the Canadian Ambassador
to Mongolia. My friend Brian was friends with him, so he connected us and the
Ambassador was kind enough to provide us with some beer and pizza. He was very
friendly and interested in our trip! The other Ottawa team – Five Crew Canoe as
well a team of crazy boys from Saskatchewan were both there.

We had a
nice lunch and I rushed back to the hotel to pick up Sebastien and head to the
airport. We were a little concerned because it took a lot longer than we
expected to get to the airport, but it’s so small it didn’t actually matter
that we were only there an hour before our international flight! We ran into
Sandy (from 2 Vagabonds and a Yak) who was on the same flights with us until
Frankfurt, as well as Mark from the Rollover team who was on our flight to
Beijing. Since Mark had hurt his neck in the accident in Russia, he managed to
get his travel insurance to pay for an upgrade to first class! He’s a smart
man.

Seb and I at the start of our trip home

Our flight
path was long – Ulaanbaatar to Beijing to Frankfurt to London to Ottawa – but thanks
to the comforts of lounge access it wasn’t quite as bad as we thought it would
be.

Watching really weird Asian music videos with Sandy in the Air China lounge in Beijing - this is the VIP room ;)

Air Canada has also stepped up their movie selection, which was much
appreciated! We made it
back to Ottawa safe and sound – though tired! Meena, Adam and Lise met us at
the airport and gave us a great welcome home.

Gabby (Aussie
friend of the Roos and also our friend now!) was working in Ulaanbaatar and had
organized a weekend away a few hours out of the capital in a national park with
a bunch of other Aussies. They were kind enough to invite us along to relax,
spend some time in nature and sleep in a ger camp which we thought was a
fitting way to spend one of our last days in Mongolia.After a two hour bus ride - where one person got his ipod stolen, another got pickpocketed and I fell asleep on the shoulder of a random Mongolian lady while holding her baby's diaper bag - we arrived here!

We went to the Ger camp and it was awesome! We were all so tired that it gave us a good chance to relax and be lazy. We spent time napping and lazing on the grass while some of the others went geocaching (like hunting for treasure using GPS). I had never heard of this, but apparently it is popular and they found two caches!

Relaxing at the ger camp

Sebastien and I, along with one of the girls went horse-back riding. There are horses everywhere in Mongolia, so it’s one of those things we figured we had to do. Sebastien was a regular Genghis Khan, tromping all over the hills while I had the guide lead me, and spent most of the time remembering why I don’t like horseback riding. Nonetheless it was still fun!

At the end of our ride

Enjoying a beer after a long day ;)

The ger camp had organized a huge bonfire for us, so we sat around and talked smack until it died down a bit.

It was a big fire! Photo courtesy of Rhys

Sebastien, Ben and I were out for the count so we headed back to our ger while the others hit the Chinggis Khan vodka like champs. The boys got the wood fireplace in the ger going so it was nice and toasty, and we slept like babies –until about 3am when the fire died and we ran out of firewood.

The next
morning, the time had finally come for us to part ways with the Mighty Perodua.
It was time to go to the Mongol Rally finish line! We rolled into the finish
line parking lot and took our obligatory triumphant pictures. It was great to
catch up with some other ralliers, and that feeling of accomplishing our 10,000
mile journey was truly amazing.

Yup, the dots on the map are finally connected! We made it!

I wanted to take pictures on the car the entire trip but Sebastien only let me at the end. I swear the roof was made of plastic and kept puckering in, which is why I look nervous.

MR2012!!!

We had a sad and heartfelt good-bye with our lovely car. We highly recommend the Perodua for any future Ralliers. Or anyone in general, it is nearly impossible to stop this beast of a car. After all that we put the car through, 3 flat tires and a change of fuses were the only things that went wrong!

We were so sad to leave our car, and we hope a nice Mongolian gets good use out of it!

Last shot of Tweety in the car parking lot - which was filled with cars in a lot worse shape than ours!!

After saying goodbye to Tweety we headed inside to chat with the other Ralliers and to open our Finish line kit! My sister Meena and her husband Adam had given us a finish line kit that we couldn’t open until....you got it.... we got to the finish line. It was a Styrofoam cube that had gotten us into a few prickly patches with border guards wondering what was in it. Through sign language and actions we managed convey that it was a gift and a surprise and managed to get it through all of the border crossings. We were excited to see what was inside. We weren’t the only ones! A bunch of ralliers stood around for the unveiling.

Opening the finish line kit

The assortment of goodies were perfect (though the chocolate had melted and re-shaped a few times), Sebastien was excited to have a great cigar and the beers were even still cold from sitting in the car the night before (Mongolia is cold at night!). We shared the wealth with our friends and relaxed.

Thanks Meena and Adam!

The day that we dropped the car off was also the day of the final finish line party. We went for dinner with a few people – to a restaurant that ended up giving most people a slight case of food poisoning (oops!).

Sebastien had managed to stay more or less healthy the entire trip only to fall victim during the last few days!

He felt wonky at the beginning of the party, and after saying hi to most friends left to go relax at the hotel room. I stuck around to catch up with the other teams and get the gossip on the trip.

There was a lot! Some interesting team dynamics (read: fights and friendships potentially ruined), Mongol Rally romances, and more. It was interesting to hear all the stories and revel in the shared glory of finishing our adventure! There was an interesting finish to the night when one of the other Canadians got punched in the nose by a random dude, and that point was an opportune time to make my exit!

Friday, September 28, 2012

The next
morning we started on our way to Arvaikheer. On the way we stopped at temple devoted to horses – an essential animal for most rural Mongolians. The temple had a number of stupas, horse carvings and horse bones as homage and was an interesting stop.

Sebastien imitates a statue at the horse temple

horse bones

stupas and prayer offerings

It was at this temple that we were also informed that it was only 400km to Ulaanbaatar and it was all on paved roads! That energized us, although we realized later that sometimes no roads are better than paved roads that are poorly maintained!

Mongolian pigeons

We stopped in the town of Arvaikheer and ate at a Korean karaoke bar restaurant. Of all the restaurants in that town, we found out it was the same restaurant the Roos had eaten in the day before. We saw their clever entry when we signed the guestbook.

Reliable way to transport horses

At this point, we knew that we could get to Ulaanbaatar that day and were excited by the prospect of a hot shower and a decent bed. There had been talk of taking it slow and camping close to Ulaanbaatar, but we were not interested in that once we realized it was possible to reach Ulaanbaatar before it was dark.

Solar powered ger

The realization that this was truly our last day of driving was a surreal feeling. After driving for so long, and so far, it was really hard to comprehend that our time on the road was so close to ending. We were sad, but at the same time we were excited to actually accomplish our goal. And shower – did I mention that?

A road sign! Very novel!

During this last day on the road, Sebastien and I spent time debriefing about our trip. Despite the hours we had ahead of us for discussion, it was impossible to remember everything, everyone we met or to even really process the trip as a whole.

Horses out for a swim

Our car was also ready for a break - during the last 100km we noticed that every time we went over a big bump there was a weird smell like the tires were burning and figured the back shocks were giving out. But, our car made it! And so did we.

Herding by motorbike!

After
roughly 10,000 miles we rolled into Ulaanbaatar thinking we were going to make
a triumphant entrance. We were soon confronted with the realities of
Ulaanbaatar. Not very pretty and a TON of traffic. It took us over an hour to
go the last 10km.

We made our
way to “downtown” Ulaanbaatar and stopped at the Ramada to see if there were
rooms available or if they could recommend other hotels. There was a conference
in town, so many of the hotels were booked up. The other teams were looking forward
to some 5 star action, which we were not quite ready to pay for, so Sebastien
and I found a perfectly adequate and well-priced hotel down the road from the
Ramada and basked in the luxury.

We called
the Roos and made plans to meet them at a bar where they were at a trivia night
with their friend Gaby and some of her other Aussie expat buddies. At this
point we were pretty exhausted, but felt like we needed to still go out for a
bit and more than anything really wanted to hear how the Roos had gotten on for
the last few days of their trip.

We traveled
to the Irish pub for a joyful reunion with the boys. It was so great to see
them, and hear about their crazy journey which ended up taking them really off
the beaten path (because they listened to Ed’s directions). Sebastien and I
were planning to go home after a drink or two, but were convinced that we
should hit the town. During our search for the next bar, we ran into a bunch of
other Ralliers – including some of our favourite people from the trip! Many
hugs ensued and we realized that Pat from Australia was freakishly strong when
he picked me up with one arm and Sebastien with the other one.

We ended up
going out to a bar that had private karaoke rooms and really got into it. Rhys
showed his prowess as a crooner, and Sebastien put on two exceedingly spectacular
performances of his karaoke go-to songs. The boys were in awe and kept
wondering aloud where the hell Sebastien had come from. They then kept telling
me how lucky I was that I got to marry him! It was hilarious. Sebastien pretty
much had the most hardcore fan club ever that night and the bromances that were
already strong reached another level that night. Sebastien’s singing talent was
a recurring topic of conversation for the next few days!

The next day
we set off to Bayankhonger. We hit some rough spots right at the beginning when
we got stuck in sneaky sand pits multiple times. We were driving in the middle
of nowhere, through a desert with brush that looked like it was hard ground.
But sometimes, out of nowhere, there were sections of sand that would victimize
our cars. Out of the blue we would just get stuck! Luckily we had Dave and his
Suzuki Jimny, plus all of our combined muscles to get us out of these
situations!

Thanks for the tow Dave!

We kept
going, through this remote, vast terrain with barely any vehicles in sight. We
followed the GPS directions and found ourselves in a small village with a
number of gers, tractors and rivers. We asked where the bridge was, only to be
told there was no bridge. This was what we had been told about – the place
where there are rivers you need to get towed across. Four rivers in fact! Deep
rivers.

Peter asks for directions

We struck a
deal with the tractor drivers, and watched a few people cross before us. The
ubiquitous Toyota Land Rovers roared through like nobody’s business. People
towed before us made it across without capsizing. But, one car (local – not a
rallier) decided to go at it without a tow and nearly made it when he
inexplicably turned the wheel as he was coming up on the riverbank. He ended up
floating downriver, submerging his car and STILL needing to pay for a tow.

The river!

Sebastien
and I rearranged the car to move stuff off of the floor and put the electronics
where they would not be affected. Finally, it was time for us to go across the
river. It was a bit nerve-wracking since we had heard so many stories about
tow-wires snapping, cars submerging and things just going completely wrong. I
don’t know why we ever doubted our little Perodua. There was slight leaking
through the door at one point (the water was up to the windows) and that was
it! No problems at all! In fact, our mats got cleaner so that was a bonus!

Saw some camels hanging out

When we got
to the other side we were excited and kept on to Bayankhonger. Team Two
Vagabonds and a Yak needed to get their tires fixed, so we grabbed some food
and perused the market while they did that. We were all itching to hit the road
and make up some time so we could make it to Ulaanbaatar the next day.

After a few
hours, we were on our way and back into some awesome scenery. There were
amazing, surreal rock formations surrounding us for kilometres. As the sun
started to set we stopped to set up camp in the middle of some majestic
mountains of rock.

Off to climb some rocks

Everyone was eager to stretch their legs and the adventurous
ones among us climbed to the tops of these formations and were greeted with an
awesome view of the sun setting through the peaks.

Man on a rock (Sebastien)

I conquered
one of the taller ones and Sebastien was impressed that I managed to get to the
top in flip-flops.

Peter chilling on some rocks

Invigorated
by our climb and starving from a day of driving, Sebastien and I made red curry
for everyone for dinner. We chatted, drank some vodka (some more than others!) and called it a
night.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

The next
morning we set off, keen to meet up with the Roos and be on our way. As we
drove, we were relieved we had stopped driving when we did. The road was windy
and kind of treacherous and it would have taken us twice as long to travel it
in the dark. We saw the town of Altai approach, checked our watch and realized
we were completely late to meet the other teams. We went to get gas and cash
when we ran into the team Two Vagabonds and Yak. We agreed to meet at the
“Mongol Rally Auto Service” on the way out of town and convoy together, along
with another vehicle driven by Dave, who was driving solo.

A truly classy place - Mongol Rally Auto Service

The Mongol Rally Auto Service was a totally happening place! We saw a ton of teams there and were milling waiting for people to fix random parts of their car. We were chatting with people about how all the electrical stuff was starting to fail on our car (radio, horn, lights) when someone pointed out that all of those things are connected to the fuse box. This wasn’t some totally hopeless problem – it was, in fact, quite a simple fix! Well, except we didn’t even know where our fuse box was or how to change a fuse. BUT we were lucky enough to chat with a super friendly Rallier named Matt who is also a mechanic! He fixed our car in a jiffy and Sebastien and I were elated. Not that we don’t love talking to each other for 10 hours a day, but we were in a really good part of our audiobook that we were looking forward to finishing.

Dorky, I know.

This was the nice guy that fixed our fuses. Sadly, his car needed a much more complicated fix!

Once everyone had their car stuff sorted, we headed off. There were five or six teams that set off around the same time, and soon after we left Altai we came across the others stopped on the side of the road. One of the cars had driven over a sharp rock that had pierced their sump guard and their fuel line. Their car was leaking all over the place. One of the guys in the affected convoy was Peter, a Norwegian who had hooked up with the team when his car was totalled in Kyrgyzstan. Peter had a bit of an issue because he had to be in Ulaanbaatar by Saturday because he had to be back in Norway for work on Monday. At this point it was Wednesday, and they had no idea how long it would take to fix the car, or if the car could be salvaged. Since Dave was traveling alone in a compact SUV with plenty of space, Peter decided to hop in with him. He was pretty choked because at that point he was really close with the other dudes, but his options were limited.

Supa stupa!

Glad that we hadn’t hit any of those issues, we continued on with a few stops here and there – to admire a stupa and have lunch.

Two Vagabonds and a Yak ended up having some tire problems, but other than that, the day was pretty smooth.

Horse grave

Off-roading....because there are no roads

We had also found ourselves in good company again – since the teams had maps and GPS! Despite both of these things, we ended up off-course on our way to the next town – Bayankhonger. It was a blessing in disguise though, as we came across a really pretty lake that was our campsite for the night. Sebastien and I had supplied part of the lunch (leftover chilli – warm this time!) so we were treated and didn’t have to cook anything for dinner! We made a small appetizer – fried goat cheese (donated by our Mongolian friend the day before), but that was it. While everyone else was working hard, Sebastien and I got our feet wet in the lake (much too cold and murky for full submersion). It was refreshing to wash off some of the caked in dust, but there really was not much that could be done.

Scenic Mongolian lake

Dave, Renata and Sandy set to work on the stew which ended up pretty much being a work of art. Sebastien and I agreed it was one of the top five soups or stews we had ever tasted. And not just because we were starving. Dave is a bit of a foodie and had concocted just the right combination of spices to accentuate all of the ingredients. It was amazing.

Dave works on his masterpiece of a stew

We set our chairs in a semicircle to face the sunset and were treated to both a sunset and a moonset as we dined. Seriously, the moon sets in the horizon. It’s wild. There was much discussion amongst everyone on why that happens. It was refreshing to have a discussion that relied on our knowledge (or lack thereof), speculation and a sense of wonder, rather than having instant access to the answer via Google. I think that Sebastien had a good explanation, but at this point I can’t remember what it was!